Pondering the possibilities of bridge-building after Benedict

Paul Monk

Almost all of the commentary following the announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that he was retiring seems to have concentrated on relatively banal topics, such as what he will do now, who will succeed him and what prompted him to become the first Pope in 600 years to lay down his office rather than wait for death to take him.

His departure should lead us to reflect on two larger questions: the nature of the papacy itself and the role of religion in the 21st-century world.

Large numbers of people who call themselves Christians in our time are Protestants or evangelicals of various kinds. All these groups and curious congregations reject papal authority for historical reasons. They all in their different, often strangely literal, ways appeal to the Bible as authority. Large numbers of people who more or less still call themselves Catholics also, now, repudiate the Pope, because they regard his office as ''mediaeval'', out of touch with contemporary society and unacceptably authoritarian. Few such people will regret the retirement of Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger. He has long been regarded as a reactionary figure, trying to hold the Catholic Church back from heading down the liberal and even ''new-age'' direction they think it should take.

Yet the challenge facing Cardinal Ratzinger when he became Pope eight years ago was formidable. It was to hold a besieged Catholic Church together. It's worth putting aside our prejudices and judgments for a while to consider the nature and possibilities of the papacy. One way to do that is to consider that the Pope is the ''Pontifex Maximus'' and not just St Peter's heir. The title is Latin, of course, and literally means ''Greatest Bridge-Builder'' - from the words pons (bridge), facere (to make or build) and maximus (greatest). That is worth pondering, because it is a title taken over by the papacy from ancient Rome; much as the titles of Mary such as ''Star of the Sea'' were taken over from Isis and Venus. It has great potential symbolism now.

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The office of Pontifex Maximus dates back to the eighth century BC and was, for more than a thousand years, the title of the leading religious figure in Rome, head of the College of Pontiffs (of whom there were originally five). Their role was to form a bridge between the gods and humanity and to tend the pax deorum, the peace of the gods. It was only as, or even after, the Roman Empire fell that the bishops of Rome took over the title. By some accounts it was Pope Leo the Great (440-61), by others Pope Gregory I (590-604), who first officially took the title Pontifex Maximus. But this gathered into the hands of the papacy the prestige and public role originally vested in the head of the Roman College of Pontiffs.

From a Protestant or sceptical secular point of view, of course, this is precisely where the mischief started. The popes became semi-pagan figures mingling religious charisma with political authority, the gospels with older superstitions. They assumed the imperial aura of Rome itself, the Eternal City, and claimed that they had authority on Earth as the representatives of the Messiah. There is some truth in this. The mediaeval papacy was, at many points, a corrupt and much-abused institution. Just ask Dante. The rebellion against papal authority during the Reformation was, on moral and theological grounds, entirely understandable.

And yet there is something about the heritage of Rome and the idea of the Pontifex Maximus which, mingled with the biblical heritage, can lend immense symbolic and moral significance to the gestures and utterances of popes in our time. If we put to one side the merely dogmatic insistence of true believers that this is because the Pope ''really is'' the ''Vicar of Christ on Earth'' and think simply of the capacity of the holder of that office to play the role of Greatest Bridge-Builder, we can appreciate, without being believers at all, the possibilities of the papacy even in the 21st century. No other religious figure in the world comes close; not the Dalai Lama, not any Muslim cleric and certainly no Protestant one.

The question is: what can be asked of the Pontifex Maximus in the 21st century? Surely, the single most important role, apart from revitalising the Catholic Church itself, is to further develop the art of bridge-building in an era when divisions among religions and states are grave and when co-ordination and co-operation around the planet for the common good are both urgent and challenging.

But if the building and care of new bridges is to be undertaken by whoever holds the ancient office of Pontifex Maximus in Rome, he will surely need to find a better balance between the emphasis on religious dogmas and rituals that goes with being Pope and the broader and ultimately higher office of exemplary leadership and moral integrity that the world as a whole respects.

The new atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, have called for the abolition of monotheistic religion for the sake of humanity. A more plausible and surely more attractive scenario would be the transformation of monotheistic religion (not just Catholicism or even Christianity) and the healing of schisms and bitter discords that have so discredited it throughout the past two millenniums. For historical reasons, this is a difficult role for the popes to play; but for symbolic reasons it is a role that the Pontifex Maximus is better placed to play than any other religious or, for that matter, political leader. This is not because of the ''truth'' of Catholic claims. It is, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood, visiting Rome in 1924, because of the potential for profound universalism that Rome embodies. Bonhoeffer didn't convert to Catholicism. He simply admired its possibilities. They remain to be fulfilled. There's the great challenge confronting the next Pontifex Maximus.

Paul Monk is co-founder of Austhink Consulting. He is also an author, former senior intelligence analyst and commentator on international affairs.